Firegoddess says he won't be back.

[HungarianRhapsody]

I feel like back in pre-school while reading this thread. Devs deleting his character? Serious? Imagine that lol. Jerry: Oh I'm gonna log in today and delete firegoddess cause he so pro and such a figure. Can't really share space with someone so alfa...

Despite, I do feel for the guy. I have no idea what happend, maybe a very rare bug of some kind?? I don't know... My guess would be weak password/ sharing pc/ loging in outside home etc...

Turbine/SSG has a history of deleting characters for reasons that they think are appropriate.

I can't say whether Firegoddess did any of those things, but that kind of doesn't matter because Turbine/SSG also has a mediocre track record of correctly identifying that behavior. All that matters here is whether SSG *thought* he was doing one of the things that cause them to delete a character.

So an SSG employee deleting his character isn't 100% confirmed as the reason this happened, but it's certainly plausible and it's actually pretty likely given their track record.

[Wylf]

Turbine/SSG has a history of deleting characters for reasons that they think are appropriate.

What makes me personally doubt that being the reason is the fact that the character was recreated as a level 1 character a few hours later. That, to me, smells more like someone having access to the account who shouldn't have. Which very well might be a disgruntled SSG employee, but the simplest, most plausible assumption is that someone gained access to the account either because login data was shared with them (be it deliberately or through a phising attempt) or because they managed to gain access to it in some way.

Either way, I would recommend for Firegoddess to change their password. And possibly run a malware/spyware check on their computer.

[TitusOvid]

I am Firegoddess.

A few weeks ago, while I was playing an alt (on the same account as Firegoddess), my main Toon (Firegoddess) was deleted and then 2 hours later, recreated (in name only) as a 1st lifer.

I was playing my alt all day (approx. 7 hours straight).

I have sent in 17 tickets within the 1st few days with NO response from SSG's CS. I then contacted a law firm in LA county USA to send in a "Letter of Intent" to start Arbitration with SSG. Hours after this, my character was returned to me (complete), except for my TR cashe. After a couple more e-mails, my TR cashe was "in-game "mailed to me. This was great except for now I do not have any room on this character to pick up anything in quests (something I can live with if they can not help me with this issue). I will need to TR Firegoddess again (TR number 408 on her!)


So, after all this, I would like to let everyone know, that if you can be patient (which I am not, unfortunately), all issues can be resolved.



As for what happened or why it happened, no one knows. ( I will state that I do not dupe or Cheat and would never do anything that might get my account banned as I have spent far too long playing and investing time and money into this game to risk this). I also did not delete my main toon by accident as some have asked in this thread ( I have TR'd Fire over 400 times and I have 2 other completionists, so not an error I would make).



I do miss my online friends and hope to have this solved in the next couple weeks. Looking forward to getting back into the game.

Congrats to you for getting your character back.

Since we don't know the whole story and especially not SSGs side it is all speculations. The informtaion here paints a very sad picture for SSG and their customer relations. But we know that already.
Be happy you are known in the community. Some poor sap who has no advocats has likely no chance to get a reasonable outcome.

Cheers,
Titus.

[Wayoff]

The title of this thread is very misleading since Firegoddess actually is back and isnt leaving. Can we change this to reflect current events?

[Dreppo]

Could somebody at SSG suddenly and without warning delete this thread please?

[AstorPotamus]

Could somebody at SSG suddenly and without warning delete this thread please?

I hope not, because it paints SSG’s complete lack of customer support in an unflatteringly accurate shade of brown, because it’s utter______.

[SerPounce]

I hope not, because it paints SSG’s complete lack of customer support in an unflatteringly accurate shade of brown, because it’s utter______.

It does? Sure it took a bit, but he got everything back and it looks like they spent a lot of man hours getting an unique problem fixed for him specifically. I'm cool with that from a small developer. I get that there's a very really chance that I'll run into a frustrating bug, but that they will sort it out. And it's not even like 17 days is that insanely long...

[Arjen]

While the issue of what happened in the first place is of great concern, the real issue here is how SSG’s farmed out customer service consistently and completely failed to solve this issue to the point a lawyer was needed. If SSG does nothing to fix their abysmal customer support, then they truly deserve that F rating they have with the Better Business Bureau.

While all that might be true in terms of the CS team - let's not pretend that the BBB is anything more than a pay to play scam.

[Hawkwier]

Apparently there is a sploit that involves creating a L1 toon.

Pure conjecture here, but maybe something went wrong?

[Drunkendex]

It does? Sure it took a bit, but he got everything back and it looks like they spent a lot of man hours getting an unique problem fixed for him specifically. I'm cool with that from a small developer. I get that there's a very really chance that I'll run into a frustrating bug, but that they will sort it out. And it's not even like 17 days is that insanely long...

Agreed, in some other companies they'd just ignore him.

[nokowi]

It does? Sure it took a bit, but he got everything back and it looks like they spent a lot of man hours getting an unique problem fixed for him specifically. I'm cool with that from a small developer. I get that there's a very really chance that I'll run into a frustrating bug, but that they will sort it out. And it's not even like 17 days is that insanely long...

You gloss over the issue that the player has no idea how long they will wait, that there is no consistency in what gear they restore (based on forum posts in similar situations), and that some issues do not ever get fixed for other people. If you pay attention to the forums, there are people with stuff missing from years ago due to similar issues.

The solution is trivial: update a person in a similar situation every couple of days. In the 21st century we expect some sort of communication when we have a game breaking issue. An automatic cue is trivial and requires zero dev effort once implemented - as in letting the user know they are in line for a fix.

Most people would certainly be willing to wait 17 days for a resolution. Most people would want an update that something is being done. As in we will resolve your stuff, but it may take a few weeks. Or we won't ever resolve your stuff, so you can decide if the game is worth playing without your stuff. The complete lack of help/info is a hallmark of SSG.

The entire forum presence of this issue us a result of that lack of communication from SSG. A potential lawsuit that never needed to happen is a result of that lack of communication.

You are cool with 17 days, I would be to. I would not be cool with the actual experience, because that 17 days was a totally unknown.

Describe the situation accurately, and many that agree with what you said (this includes me) might come to a different conclusion. I know I would. By his own words, Fire didn't need to make such a stink had he known it was being resolved. But he didn't know it was being resolved.

It's a trivial fix with a big impact for the player in this situation. Someone ready to throw away that many past lives and accomplishments shows you how painful the apparent lack of care can be.

[AstorPotamus]

It does? Sure it took a bit, but he got everything back and it looks like they spent a lot of man hours getting an unique problem fixed for him specifically. I'm cool with that from a small developer. I get that there's a very really chance that I'll run into a frustrating bug, but that they will sort it out. And it's not even like 17 days is that insanely long...

Apparently you missed the bit where it took him hiring a lawyer and sending a LOI to SSG itself, and not to whomever they’ve farmed out their customer services responsibilities to. If you think that overseas customer service goons fixed this issue, and not some of the devs at SSG itself, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.

[smokejumper89]

Apparently there is a sploit that involves creating a L1 toon.

Pure conjecture here, but maybe something went wrong?

The "sploit" you're talking about was an April fools joke posted on the other forum. Even IF a seasoned player fell for it, do you really think they'd try it on their main character? And this is Fire Goddess we're talking about - someone most definitely NOT an exploiter.

[smokejumper89]

You gloss over the issue that the player has no idea how long they will wait,

This has been my biggest issue with SSG's customer dis-service. No communications, months-lone lead-times. The in-game ticketing system was actually broken for me for weeks. Got no response on the external system. At this point, I just give up. If something goes wrong, that's on me for spending money on this game.

[Chai]

It does? Sure it took a bit, but he got everything back and it looks like they spent a lot of man hours getting an unique problem fixed for him specifically. I'm cool with that from a small developer. I get that there's a very really chance that I'll run into a frustrating bug, but that they will sort it out. And it's not even like 17 days is that insanely long...

Thats plenty long enough to get interested in other games, or find something IRL to do. If someone communicated regularly about the progress, thats different, but the ordeal that had to be gone through to get first response communication is not defend-able.

Also: Note how fast stuff was returned after arbitration was initiated. This shows the customer did not have to wait anywhere near 17 days.

[nokowi]

This has been my biggest issue with SSG's customer dis-service. No communications, months-lone lead-times. The in-game ticketing system was actually broken for me for weeks. Got no response on the external system. At this point, I just give up. If something goes wrong, that's on me for spending money on this game.

They have not taken the simplest of actions to improve player experience here.

They certainly have time for some pretty trivial things, but they can't let you know if/when your deleted character will be resolved?

SSG does not understand/prioritize player experience.

They do some things well (which is why many are still here), but this is where they are off-the-charts poor.

The guy that monitors these posts, took the time to close Fire's other threads, and tell us why he closed those other threads, and is aware of the situation can't send an update, or tell someone to send an update, or say they are working on it in the very thread where he took the time to tell us why Fire's thread was closed?

It's not believable.

[Peter_Stauffenberg]

Turbine/SSG has a history of deleting characters for reasons that they think are appropriate.

So an SSG employee deleting his character isn't 100% confirmed as the reason this happened, but it's certainly plausible and it's actually pretty likely given their track record.

It's very unlikely this happened because the toon Firegoddess was created again as a level 1 toon. SSG would never create a toon again after deleting a toon because of e. g. cheating. They would also not spend so much time manually restoring Firegoddesses' toon if they believe he had done something wrong. So I think we can rule that out as a possibility.

It's more likely that the level 1 toon was created with malicious intent to overwrite the original toon to make that toon harder to restore. I've heard of a few people having their accounts hacked in DDO. When they got their account back then lots of items were sold on the AH and even toons deleted. I'm not saying it happened here, but it has happened before.

The other explanation could be some kind of weird bug linked to the hardcore server with toons being transferred. Do we know if a toon name called Firegoddess existed on the hardcode server?

I believe the main thing is that SSG figure out what really happened and fix the bug if that was the cause. We don't want this to happen to others. If someone with bad intent did this they that person should be permabanned. I'm sure Firegoddess has already changed the password on his DDO account.

It's good the issue seems to finally get resolved, but it's alarming lawyers had to be involved. I'm myself from Europe and I won't have any chance doing that from here. I don't know anything about how to get in contact with US lawyers if I need one.

Great we might get Firegoddess back to the game again soon. He seems like a very nice and skilled DDO person. Pity he's not playing on Khyber where my toons are.

[Valerianus]

sorry, i'll say something not directly about the OP.

just something afloat in my mind, borderline relevant to the thread. sorry about that.


am i the only one that thinks that the fabled 1% of the supposed ubers, the fabled 1% the vocal majority of players keep saying is at fault for some game changes, like, "the devs develop only for the ubers that are also the whales to milk willing to be milked"...are in truth the worst customers? the ones you would like to kick out without even thinking about it twice. not because you are mean, not because you are willing to do it. i'm not accusing anyone. i'm saying this just because they are ...sort of inconvenient. i'm just brainstorming here. i'm not implying anything and i don't want to.

follow me into this, they have everything, they farmed everything, the only thing they must buy are expansions, the rest (like e.g. exp pots) is up to them, and anyway, such a pro player need really a few pots. are they really, i mean, all of them, spending a lot of money? for what? i mean, generally speaking, for sure there will be cases when a player really spend a lot of money. but, how many questing hours (thus, exp pots, IF they're being used) does an uberpletionist with a ton of reaper xp need to get a life done? not many. like when a new race\class is released (they'll buy those with ddo points from the favor from racial completionist i guess), or reaper xp farming. and well, this game, like any mmo, is about grind. they finished it. they beat the game. moreover, they are such involved in the game and they are so good at it, they can actually explain the devs how their game works. not because the devs are oblivious, nothing wrong with them, it's just that you need a high-end pro player, and the actual game experience you get in becoming one, to understand the nuances and the details and the deep knowledge about, like, building a char to maximize its power. because ddo is a wonderful game cause of its complexity, talking about building. it can be embarrassing, a couple of wrong words in the wrong thread. not because the devs are bad, just because the devs are not full-time players. i would never catch that, i'm not even close to be in the 1%, i have not the commitment, nor the knowledge, nor the skill. but someone would. last time a dev talked about building, (afaik, i may be wrong) dps build, there was this potential staff build in the high-end dps. well, that was embarassing for real. not because it was wrong, because it missed that deep knowledge only a full-time player has. sorry if this thread will be closed because of this statement, telling the truth, i even expect a warning for this (because leadership is not to be questioned, and this is fair). but it happened (afaik, i may be wrong).

i mean, no matter what they release, if you have everything you'll have everything again in no time. you are off the charts. you are sort of inconvenient. you are not the customer, since you are "1%", they are planning, business-wise, to have.


as i said, just brainstorming, please feel free to refuse, disprove, deny me. or just ignore me.

[cdbd3rd]

I am Firegoddess......

Great news on the results!

Real bummer on what it took to get there.

[J-2]

Wonderful news on a not so stellar day for me.
Glad to hear your wrong was set right again.
Its a shame that it had to involve legal action.

I hope that they can most of the CS team like a tuna.